


The Night Visitor

by ChillyJackal



Series: Zootopia Oddities AU [9]
Category: Zootopia
Genre: Horror, Musk Deer, Other, Silver Fox, Squirrel - Freeform, Werewolf, Wolverine - Freeform, fairy tale, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 04:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16527776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillyJackal/pseuds/ChillyJackal
Summary: A mammal is woken from her sleep in the middle of the night by a surprise visitor.





	The Night Visitor

Knock. 

Knock.

Knock.

Gulia's precious sleep had been disturbed the sound of knocking on her front door.

The wolverine stirred and grumbled as she sat up lazily. A few cans of alcohol and energy drinks toppled over as she forced herself out of bed and struggled to get some sweatpants on. 

"Yeah yeah, I hear ya. Hang on..."

She glared at the clock on her bedside, the red numbers on the display informing her that it was just past 3 in the morning.

"Better be friggin' important."

Peering through the small peephole drilled into the door revealed a very pale mammal standing at her door patiently, some sort of musk deer who stared back through the hole with sickly red eyes. If she wasn't so exhausted she would've jumped a bit, but she was exhausted, and this guy was knocking on her door at 3 in the morning for no reason. After taking a minute to undo some of the locks, she opened the door a crack, leaving the chain on the door in case things went south.

"Can I help ya?"

"Yes, I think you can. My car stalled not far from here and I was wondering if I could maybe use your phone?"

He spoke in a quiet little voice, barely audible from where he was behind the door. Gulia rolled her eyes as she tried to inch the door open a bit more. The deer seemed to refuse to get his snout, or any part of himself, any closer to the doorway as she tried to continue the conversation.

"Car troubles huh? Nocturnal District isn't the best place to have cars die, 'specially not on the outskirts."

"Are the outskirts here dangerous?"

"Sometimes. Weird stuff happens out here and some mammals are just assholes y'know?"

Gulia felt herself waking up a little more as she tried to keep the awkward conversation with the younger deer going, opening the door just a bit more but keeping an empty bottle of booze closeby in case he was one of those serial killers with the cute faces. He seemed like a cute guy, from what little she could see of him at a time since he still stood away from the door. The wolverine always liked the idea of nabbing herself a younger man to share her dump with, preferably cute and with a job of course.

"Well that doesn't sound too pleasant at all. I'm lucky I found your home as soon as I did."

She flashed a grin, cursing the smell of liquor that probably wafted off her teeth as she did.

"Well, nice place to live if ya know how like me. I'm a tough gal, nothin' here's gonna get me."

She started to realize something as she scoped him out, he wasn't moving from the spot he stopped at. He didn't try to get closer or farther away, just stayed in one spot completely still. Maybe he was just one of those OCD people? She decided to try something and unlocked the chain, opening the door more and getting a much better look at the deer.

She didn't realize how much black he wore. Black shirt, shoes, dress pants, his socks were probably black too. Was this a thing albino deer did as a fashion statement? It only made his little red eyes with the square pupils stand out more. It creeped her out and made her more wary, she needed to test something out.

"Sooo, what's with the getup?"

"The...get up?"

"The clothes. You're kinda dressed like you're gonna go case a joint or steal someone's panties."

Gulia waited for any sort of movement or reaction, if he was a creeper or burglar he'd leave or get worked up and she could smash a bottle over his knoggin and call the cops. The deer continued to stay put and only tilted his head in confusion.

"Is that another thing that happens often here?"

"Uh...yeah..."

"I wore this because it's all I had after my business trip outside of the city. My other shirts and pants were messy so I just wore what looked clean."

Oh no, he had a job and went on business trips? Gulia swallowed nervously and tried to control herself a bit more, even in her tired state she knew she had to be careful around here. She always thought musk deer were cute though. They were small and fluffy and had those adorable little teeth that poked out. The deer's teeth poked out too, but not in a way she'd really seen before. It took her eyes a bit to register it, but they seemed sharper than the ones she saw on the musk deer at bars or clubs. Were they that close together normally too?

As if reading her mind, he responded.

"Oh, this is just a birth defect, like the albinism you see."

"Oh shit, uh, I didn't mean to stare I just..."

"No no, it's fine, I get it all the time."

The wolverine felt her heart flutter a bit, this little guy was adorable and friendly too. She wasn't sure if it was the remnants of the previous night's buzz in her system or the lack of sleep but she was finding it hard not to just pull this cute deer inside and start smooching him there. 

"Don't Gulia, you literally just met him and he woke you up at 3 in the morning. Waking you up is sin enough on it's own."

She mumbled to herself and blushed when he seemed to hear a bit of it.

"Oh, is it 3 already? It was only 12 when I left, I assumed the drive was much shorter than that. I fear the motels might be closed by now."

It was time to make some important decisions here and now: She could invite him inside and let him stay the night, maybe get him some drinks and see if he'd be down for a little bed league wrestling with her. The other option was to dump him on Merv down the street, Merv could fix his car and let him use a phone to call a motel. 

While she went over her options in her head she took her eyes off the deer for a moment, looking back up and nearly having a heart attack when he actually got right up to the doorframe and smiled at her.

"Jesus man don't do that! Scared the bejeebus outta me!"

"Oh, sorry I didn't mean too. You seemed lost in thought so I tried to peek at your home. It's very cozy."

Cozy was putting it pretty nicely. Gulia took deep breaths to calm herself after the little scare, thoughts starting to swim into her head as she looked back at the deer, some realizations starting to bubble up. How did he do that so quickly? Clearly he just stepped closer but why didn't she hear him move or feel the air around him when he did? Was she so tired and thirsty for this random stranger that she lost enough focus for him to pull a jumpscare on her?

She noticed something else too, something weird she wouldn't have noticed before he managed to scare her into a state of awareness previously buried under the night of drinking and sleeping; he stopped right at the doorframe. 

He didn't stop a foot away, or just inside, he seemed to stop at the exact point where the inside and outside of the house connected.

"I'm losing it."

She muttered.

"This is getting stupid, he just needs to call an auto place and I need to get to bed."

Gulia sighed and decided to do a bit more probing while she was still awake.

"So uh, kinda forgot because of the whole three in the mornin' thing but, what's yer name sugar?"

"Oh I'm sorry, that was super rude of me. My name's Harker, you are?"

"Gulia, with a G. Mom an' Dad thought it was cute."

She held out her paw, making sure it went past the doorframe as the deer extended his own little arm an shook it stiffly. Looking at his hooves she couldn't help but notice the sharp little ends on them. Did deer trim down hooves to look like claws now? Was that a thing?

"Well Harker sweetie, if you need the phone I'll go grab the cell for ya."

"Oh no. I need to use a landline."

"What? Why?"

"It'd be rude of me to use your minutes on myself."

"It's an unlimited plan."

Harker seemed confused, looking up in thought and grumbling something about forgetting those were a thing as he stood there.

"Wait here okay? I'll get the phone."

Gulia turned and stumbled over to her phone, which had been plugged into a charger beside her bed since the night before. As she returned to the door to hand it to Harker she felt a twinge of anxiety buzz through her body. She shook herself out of it and blinked as Harker held the phone up.

"Looks like your battery died Gulia."

"What? How?"

She yanked the phone out of his hooves, making him stumble back a bit when she nearly pulled him past the doorframe to look.

"Zero percent? How the actual hell!?"

She hissed and threw the phone back into her house.

"Dammit, plug must've gone and broke again."

"Well, I'm sure the landline is fine."

"Sugar we ain't had landlines in this house since my Dad bit the dust."

She didn't mean to snap at him, but the weird insistence on using that specific phone and his sudden behavior only made her more suspicious. But, if he was dangerous, why wouldn't he just charge in and hurt her?

"Oh dear, my apologies. I really didn't know. I just assumed most houses still had at least one in these older neighborhoods."

Any plans to dryhump this guy were long out the window now, she just wanted to go back to bed and get rid of this nasty gut feeling.

"Well, Merv down the road has one of those old things if you wanna use that."

"Ah, then I'll go visit Merv. Thank you for humoring me, maybe I can come back sometime we can chat again?"

"Ha ha, I dunno about that...I ain't too interestin' sweetie."

The deer let out a defeated huff and walked back onto the street with gliding strides, making his way down to see Merv as Gulia closed her door and made sure everything was bolted in place before turning on all her lights and scrambling back into bed.

"Jesus Christmas that fella was weird. Cute, probably good to wrestle, but too weird for my taste."

The uncomfortable feeling stayed with her long into the night, the clock beside her bed reading 3:01 when the feeling vanished and she found the peace to sleep.

Gulia woke up again to the sounds of sirens and daylight streaming into her little house, falling out of bed on her ass and grunting as she ran over to the window to see what was going on. 

"Oh shit, I know that house...!"

After scrambling to get on some more proper clothes the wolverine ran outside and down the street to the chaotic scene. The ZPD and some bystanders were hanging around the front of Merv's house, which was open wide enough for her to peek in and see the chaos inside. Floors and walls were stained with blood, massive gashes and clawmarks all over the place and a very much dead Merv in the middle of it all.

"What the hell happened...?"

A squirrel looked up at her.

"Someone broke into his house last night and went totally nutso. They might've been a pred tweaker or something. He probably fell for one of their stupid scams to get inside and it got him killed, the dumbass."

Gulia gulped hard and waddled back home awkwardly. Was this her fault? Had she sent a dangerous person to Merv's and lead to his death? No, there was no way. Harker had sharp little teeth and hooves but nothing like whatever caused the destruction in that hallway.

That night, Gulia decided to go bar hopping to forget about things. Harker, Merv's death, basically anything involving the past 24 hours. While she sat her ass down on a bar stool in one of the more "artsy" clubs she took notice of a painting on the wall that made her skin crawl.

"Hey dude, like it?"

Gulia jumped a bit when she heard the voice beside her, turning to come face to face with a grinning silver fox.

"Cool right? Painted it myself. Club owner wanted somethin' with fairy tales so I delivered."

"What the hell kinda fairy tale is this supposed to be?"

The painting depicted a tall, thing, boney pale creature with long blood soaked claws that looked ready to fall off it's boney form, equally deformed fangs dripping with blood in it's mouth as it's red blotchy eyes stared down at a child in a doorway. The thing was bowing and wearing some sort of old cloak.

"The Thin Mammal. It's a kinda like, vampire monster from the savage lands. They say it likes to stalk at night during the witching hour and suck the blood outta people."

"Wh-why is it bowing at the door?"

"Legend says that they can only get into your house at night if you invite them in. Some kinda weird hokey religious stuff I think. It's probably fake but hey, I made it look real right?"

Gulia sat up and left the bar, she didn't want to drink there right now, or ever again, not with that painting there. She locked herself in her house and drank until she couldn't stay awake any longer. She woke in a pile of sweat and booze when a sudden familiar feeling shot through her entire body, her eyes looking over at the clock as she started shaking.

"Th-three in the mornin'...!?"

She pulled herself off the floor and bolted under the covers, trying to fall back asleep as she started hearing the noises at her door.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.


End file.
